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The latest online poker traffic numbers from www.pokerscout.com show a continuation of the trend that has developed over the past few months, with Bodog slowly and steadily putting distance between themselves and the rest of the US-facing online poker providers, while the Revolution Gaming Network’s downward spiral continues.

Revolution, which was the #1 ranked site/network not all that long ago, has plunged and is now on the verge of being overtaken by the Chico Poker Network, which would make Revolution the least trafficked offshore provider in the US market.

The recipient of Revolution’s drop-off is clearly Bodog, which is now squarely the #1 US site, and with nearly four-times the traffic of their competitors, it’s not even close at this point.

The only other room/network on an upward trajectory is the Winning Poker Network, which has climbed into the #2 spot on PokerScout.com’s rankings for US rooms.

The US rankings have changed so much since Black Friday that you would have considered calling a mental hospital and having someone committed if just six months ago they suggested that the traffic rankings for US online poker rooms would like this in 2013 [data from www.pokerscout.com]:

1. Bodog/Bovada: Worldwide rank #9 – 7-Day Rolling Average of 1,300 cash-game players
2. Winning Poker Network: Worldwide rank #21 – 7-Day Rolling Average of 395 cash-game players
3. Merge Gaming Network: Worldwide rank #24 – 7-Day Rolling Average of 360 cash-game players
4. Revolution Gaming Network: Worldwide rank #26 – 7-Day Rolling Average of 350 cash-game players
5. Chico Poker Network: Worldwide rank #27 – 7-Day Rolling Average of 325 cash-game players
6. Ultimate Poker: Worldwide rank #37 – 7-Day Rolling Average of 134 cash-game players
7. WSOP.com: Worldwide rank #42 – 7-Day Rolling Average of 71 cash-game players
8. Seals With Clubs: Worldwide Rank #43 – 7-Day Rolling Average of 71 cash-game players

For US players the #1 concern is no longer what kind of deposit bonus will I get, or what is the VIP program? There is only one thing on US players’ minds when they deposit their money online in 2013, and that is “How long do I have to wait for a withdrawal?”

The sites that can accommodate this the fastest have been surging while the sites that are struggling with their payment processing have become persona non gratis among poker players.

And the rankings are only to go become even more volatile in late November when New Jersey launches their online gaming sites. The two Nevada rooms have peeled-off about 200 players (looking at the 7-day rolling averages) from the unlicensed operators, and New Jersey will likely account for three to four times that many players.

After their failure to purchase the Atlantic Club Casino PokerStars set their sights on another New Jersey property, but this time they decided to simply enter into a partnership agreement to offer online gaming through Resorts Casino. However, today we learned that PokerStars plans run far deeper than reentering the online poker market in the US, as the Press ofAtlanticCity.com is reporting PokerStars intends to add a $10 million branded poker room at Resorts.

William J Pascrell, a spokesman for Resorts Casino stated:

“As soon as the license is in hand, they’re ready to start building. It will be the PokerStars poker room at Resorts.”Pascrell went on to say that, “… In addition to the poker room, they are committed to driving traffic to Atlantic City through their marketing,”

The meshing of online and live poker has become a major focus in recent years, and PokerStars has been at the forefront of the effort. PokerStars has already opened a PokerStars branded poker room at the Hippodrome in London, as well as the Grand Waldo Entertainment Complex in Macau, the Circus Groupe in Belgium, and the Casino Gran Madrid in Spain.

The idea behind linking online and brick & mortar casinos could very well put an end to the antiquated notion that online gaming takes away from live gaming, and with Ultimate Gaming, Caesars Entertainment and other companies following the PokerStars model we are likely looking at a new era in online gaming.

How brick & mortar and online gaming will coexist

For years, brick & mortar casinos saw online gaming as another competitor, and a dangerous one at that. But now many of the top casino corporations see online gaming for what it truly is; another arm of the casino; an arm with far greater reach than any casino has ever had before. Imagine a casino sending every player on their mailing list a free $5 coupon for their online site?

A brick & mortar casino with a thriving online site not only brings in more revenue, but it allows the casino to cross promote; advertising for their online site inside the casino (where most of the patrons are visitors who don’t simply live in-town) while their online casino can run promotions that reward players with prizes that involve a physical trip to the casino.

These online and brick & mortar partnerships are also attractive to major poker tournaments, who will have the benefit of the host casino running both live and online qualifiers, which means more players, and more weaker players –which then leads to even more players wanting to attend.

The possibilities for casinos with a strong online presence are almost endless.

In less than two weeks the poker world will descend on Paris, France for the start of the 2013 World Series of Poker Europe. The tournament series will play out over two weeks, with eight WSOP bracelets on the line, including the inaugural Ladies Championship at the WSOPE series.

This will be the first year the WSOPE is held in Paris (actually on the outskirts of the city at the Barriere Casino in Enghien-les-Bains, France) after sending the past two years in Cannes, France, and before that in London, England. The WSOP brass has announced that the home of the WSOPE will likely continue to move around as they intend to live up to the series name of WSOP EUROPE.

The official sponsor of the WSOPE will be 888 –which also sponsored the 2013 WSOP APAC and 2013 WSOP series—and the site has announced they will offer live online streaming of the WSOPE for the first time.

The key events on the 2013 WSOPE schedule will be the €25k High-Roller tournament, and of course the €10,000 buy-in Main Event. If you were so inclined, you could enter every bracelet event at the 2013 WSOPE for a mere €48,500 plus €2,150 in tournament fees.

Here is a look at the schedule for the 2013 World Series of Poker Europe tournament series from the WSOP.com website:

In addition to the bracelet events, the series will feature 46 side events, with buy-ins measured in hundreds of Euros instead of thousands.

First brought to light by Jens “Jeans” Kyllonen over two weeks, the laptop hacking scandal from the PokerStars European Poker Tour Barcelona seems to have much deeper roots than a couple of incidents in a single European city.

The thread itself has taken on a life of its own, and multiple other high stakes players have described similar incidents, one in Berlin involving Scott Seiver and one in Deauville involving Jason Koon.

Scott Seiver: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=40041205&postcount=78

Jason Koon: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=40136934&postcount=931

I don’t want to rehash my thoughts on player security and the potential for poker players to become targets, so in this article I’ll focus on the crimes themselves and what we can extrapolate from them.

Is this 100% Poker Related?

While everyone is jumping to conclusions we should all take a second and try to determine if this is a poker-specific crime, or if this is just criminals targeting visitors in swanky European hotels for identity theft or other crimes.

The problem in determining this is that these hotels are very brand conscious and other incidents, not involving poker players, are likely to go unreported –or at least they are reported in places that are a blind spot for the poker community.

Furthermore, it’s also unlikely that your casual traveler could be hit as hard as a poker player should the information on their laptop be compromised, and it’s doubtful they would not be as security-obsessed as an online poker player, possibly not even knowing they had been hacked or their computer tampered with.

While all signs are pointing to this being a crime specifically targeting high-stakes poker players, we shouldn’t rule out the handful of players that have come forward as victims being a coincidence in a larger-scale crime.

Is this an Inside Job?

Judging by responses in the thread on 2+2, it wouldn’t be overly difficult for a travelling group of poker-playing-scammers to follow the EPT around from stop to stop, perform a little reconnaissance on who is staying where, and wait for their moment to strike –presumably by masquerading as the target and asking the front desk for a new room key.

On the other hand, it doesn’t take much imagination to envision a scenario where a €500 note is handed to someone at the front desk or even in security for a little information on specific guests: room number, current location, etc.

The third possibility –that the heads of security at hotels, or someone high-up with the EPT or PokerStars is involved– is by far the most scandalous, but also the most unlikely from a logistical standpoint. This doesn’t mean this isn’t the case –you never know how far a little greasing of the wheels will go – just that we shouldn’t jump right to this conclusion.

On Wednesday PokerStars revealed the full schedule for the 2014 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) tournament series. The PCA will run from January 5^th through the 13^th, and as always it will take place in the beautiful Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas.

The 2014 PCA will feature 39 separate tournaments, including the return of the popular $25k High-Roller and $100k Super-High-Roller, as well as the $10k buy-in Main Event which will sport a $10,000,000 guarantee this time around.

Here is a look at the complete schedule of all 39 tournaments for the 2014 PCA:

Sunday January 5^th

Monday January 6^th

Tuesday January 7^th

Wednesday January 8^th

Thursday January 9^th

Friday January 10^th

Saturday January 11^th

Sunday January 12^th

Monday January 13^th

For more information on the 2014 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure you can visit the PCA website at http://www.pokerstarscaribbeanadventure.com/

The poker industry is clamoring to see what affect the launch if the WSOP.com online poker site will have on the Nevada market, and whether it will simply poach players from rival Ultimate Poker, or will it bring their own player base into the mix.

Of course, it should be noted that we are only a week into the WSOP.com experiment, so the numbers aren’t going to give us much in the way of concrete data. Still, we can start to see one particular trend, which is an increase in the overall player base from Nevada.

So far, after the WSOP.com launch the traffic at Ultimate Poker is well within what would be considered the standard deviation for the site, while WSOP.com traffic has been up-and-down over its first week according to the traffic tracking website www.pokerscout.com.

As you can see in the chart below, Ultimate Poker traffic has seen a relatively small decline since the launch of WSOP.com, but it doesn’t appear that the WSOP.com’s current player base is made up of all that many former Ultimate Poker patrons (evidenced by the WSOP.com traffic numbers from pokerscout.com found below:

Ultimate Poker Week-by-Week Peak Traffic Comparison

*BOLD signifies traffic numbers after wsop.com launch*

WSOP.com Peak Traffic Numbers

• September 17: 29
• September 18: 35
• September 19: 113
• September 20: 102
• September 21: 77
• September 22: 152

So what does all of this mean? It’s probably too early to tell, but it would appear that there are plenty of Nevada online poker players sitting on the sidelines. Perhaps they are waiting for a specific to launch before signing up, or perhaps they are just waiting to see how the market shakes out over the coming months.

If Nevada can get up to the proposed 1% participation rate (which is considered the industry standard for gauging prospective traffic numbers), what we are witnessing now is about 50% of the potential online traffic numbers the state is capable of.

In this article I’ll take a look at the 10 poker players I would select if I had the chance to create a team of 10 poker pros for an online poker room.

In return for my sponsorship dollars I want/expect the following things:

• The player must be active on social media, blogs, and forums
• The player must be approachable and accommodating when it comes to interviews
• The player must have an impeccable reputations
• The player will not turn off new players
• The player must be friendly and talkative at the tables

The above criterion is obviously my “wish list” and very few players can actually say they fit into each of those categories, so I’m willing to overlook one or two flaws if they make up for it in another area.

These are the players I would be willing to send the farthest corners of the globe to play in poker tournaments, and the dozen players I want representing my brand.

Here are the final six (my role-players):

Allen Kessler

You really couldn’t ask for a more active player on your roster than “Chainsaw.” Kessler will rep your brand any chance he gets on social media, he will play in ANY tournament, and thanks to his “Complainsaw” personality he is a pretty well-known player.

Liv Boeree

Liv is another one of those players that just seems to always be center stage. She has some really good results during her career, has been on TV from reality shows, to tournament appearances, to presenting, and has the good looks and bubbly personality that any brand would be happy to have.

Sam Grafton

Grafton is my choice for the funniest player in the game. Grafton is unique (Google his name and go to images), well-liked, and when of the best interviews in poker. Oh, and he is a top-notch player to boot.

Phil Laak

Laak is the older, slightly more eccentric version of Sam Grafton. I used to be very anti-Phil Laak and thought his antics were bad for the game, but over the years I’ve come around to him –mostly because, unlike players who yell and act obnoxious, you can’t just duplicate Laak’s level of insanity at the poker tables.

Matt Glantz

Glantz is one of the most measured, thoughtful people in poker. His recent takes on different issues in the poker world have catapulted him from solid player to one of the leading voices in the game.

Mike Sexton

Like Glantz, Mike Sexton is just one of those people who don’t rush to conclusions and take their time to think what is best for the game. Sexton and Glantz should be every single player committee, panel, or discussion group involving poker.

In this article I’ll take a look at the 10 poker players I would select if I had the chance to create a team of 10 poker pros for an online poker room.

In return for my sponsorship dollars I want/expect the following things:

• The player must be active on social media, blogs, and forums
• The player must be approachable and accommodating when it comes to interviews
• The player must have an impeccable reputations
• The player will not turn off new players
• The player must be friendly and talkative at the tables

The above criterion is obviously my “wish list” and very few players can actually say they fit into each of those categories, so I’m willing to overlook one or two flaws if they make up for it in another area.

These are the players I would be willing to send the farthest corners of the globe to play in poker tournaments, and the dozen players I want representing my brand.

Here are the first six (my Superstar Dream Team):

Daniel Negreanu

No team of sponsored pros would be complete without Daniel Negreanu, arguably the most famous poker player in the game. Negreanu is a true ambassador for poker, willing to chat with anyone at any time, almost always in a good mood, and extremely outspoken when it comes to his ideas for bettering the game.

Phil Hellmuth

Hellmuth is another must-have player for any team of sponsored players. There is no better self-promoter in poker than the Poker Brat, and whether people love him or hate him, he brings people into the mix.

Sam Trickett

Trickett is young, successful, and one of the few alpha-males in poker. I would say that along with Negreanu, Trickett is the only player who satisfies all of the criteria I listed above.

Antonio Esfandiari

Antonio is outgoing, and can play to the younger players with his prop bets and antics, and he is able to flip a switch and become a very serious commentator on the game.

Vanessa Selbst

Hands down, Vanessa is the best female poker player in the game. Selbst is also very active in the poker community, with a presence on social media and forums, where she is always offering up insightful opinions.

Viktor Blom

Plain and simple, people want to know what is going on with Isildur1. Blom is definitely a bit of a loose cannon, and capable of vanishing for months on end, but I’m willing to overlook his eccentricities to bring him on board, as he creates an instant buzz.

After hosting the World Poker Tour’s season ending $25k Championship tournament for the past 11 years the Bellagio will bid adieu to the prestigious tournament which will now be held at the Borgata Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City New Jersey.

The news came out of left field yesterday, when the WPT sent out a press release (which you can read below) announcing the move to the Borgata. As described in the press release, the addition of the $25k Championship brings the number of stops for the WPT at the Borgata up to three for Season XII.

While no official reason was given, the move is likely a combination of a number of different factors, a few of which I’ve listed below:

• Attendance for the WPT Championship has been waning
• The Borgata is likely a less expensive venue
• WPT Borgata events have been some of the largest on the tour in recent years
• New Jersey’s soon-to-launch online gaming industry

In addition to the reasons listed above, perhaps the most important factor is the recent partnership in the New Jersey iGaming market between bwin.party (the owners of the World Poker Tour) and the Borgata Casino. If all goes to plan (and both entities are approved for a New Jersey iGaming license) Party Poker will be supplying the Borgata with their software for their online poker room.

Having the WPT Championship held at this casino would be tremendous marketing opportunity for the Borgata, as their New Jersey site (along with Party Poker’s worldwide room) could run a number of satellites for the $25k Championship, bringing casual players back into the mix.

A major issue for the WPT Championship over the years has been that the tournament field has become almost exclusively made up of poker pros. With less “value” more and more pros are skipping the tournament, so the addition of satellite winners which could once again make the WPT Championship a “good value” event.

Here is a look at the press release on the move from the WPT:

World Poker Tour’s Season XII World Championship Moving to Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa

Tournament Marks WPT’s Third Televised Event from Borgata in Season XII

Twitter: @WPT
Facebook.com/WorldPokerTour
www.WPT.com

Los Angeles, CA (September 17, 2013) – For the first time in its history, World Poker Tour’s prestigious, season-ending World Championship will be held outside Las Vegas at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Together with the currently running WPT^® Borgata Poker Open and January 2014’s WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open, this event will make Borgata home to three televised WPT tournaments in Season XII.

“We’re very pleased to name Borgata — now home to four of the five biggest tournaments in WPT history — the host of the Season XII WPT World Championship,” said WPT President Adam Pliska. “With Borgata’s well-deserved reputation for running world-class tournaments and providing unparalleled service to its players, we believe this venue is perfectly suited to host our season-culminating event. We look forward to working with the team at Borgata to bring the WPT World Championship to new heights.”

Along with the change of venue, World Poker Tour is pleased to welcome PartyPoker as the official sponsor of the Season XII WPT World Championship. “The partnership of WPT, PartyPoker, and Borgata brings together three of the most respected names in poker, and we look forward to making the World Championship more impressive than ever before.” Pliska said.

“We are extremely pleased to be growing our long-standing relationship with World Poker Tour and to be expanding our relationship with PartyPoker, especially as we look to launch Borgatapoker.com,” said Borgata’s Senior Vice President of Operations, Joe Lupo. “Adding the WPT World Championship Sponsored by PartyPoker is a welcome addition and an important new chapter in the history of this illustrious tournament.”

Borgata’s first televised WPT touranment of the year, the WPT Borgata Poker Open, is running now. With 1,189 entrants, this year’s event surpassed last year’s impressive turnout and genrated a massive prize pool of $3,923,700. Sponsored by ClubWPT.com, the tournament’s final table will be recorded on Friday, September 20 and will air on FOX Sports Network in March 2014. World Poker tour will return to Atlantic City for its second televised event of the season when the WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open begins in January 2014.

Allen Kessler took to his Twitter account on Sunday where he detailed a scenario that took place at the tail-end of Day 1a of the Borgata Poker Open Main Event, where four players apparently decided to go all-in blind before the start of the hand –the tournament was a reentry event and assumedly all four players involved were intent on reentering.

Kessler tweeted to Matt Savage and Borgata Tournament Director Tab Duchateau for their thoughts on the situation:

@SavagePoker last hand of day 1a. Four players openly agree to shove all in blind preflop. Acceptable? How to stop? @TabDuchateau

The problem is, he didn’t provide enough details for anyone to make a decision on whether this is collusion or not. If the players openly discussed this in front of the other players at the table (as Kessler states in his tweet) than everyone in the game had the same information and had the same opportunity to move all-in –In fact the other players could look at their cards before deciding, giving them a massive advantage. On the other hand, if they decided this privately, or even after just one player had folded than it is collusion.

Judging by Kessler’s tweet it would seem the four players decided this openly and before the hand played out, so I have no issue with what they did if this is in fact what occurred.

An article on the website PokerUpdate.com discussed this situation earlier today with the author saying:

“Agreeing to play a hand a certain way before the hand is played is technically collusion by the letter of the rule…”

I wholeheartedly disagree with this, and I think this is where most people go off the rails when they cry collusion. Collusion requires secrecy or the passing of information a player should not be privy to: Here is the definition of collusion from the Merriam Webster Dictionary:

Collusion: secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose

And here is a definition from FlopTurnRiver.com’s Poker Dictionary:

A term to define a method in which multiple players cheat by sharing information with each other and acting with knowledge they shouldn’t have had.

As you can see, for something to be considered collusion there must be an element of secrecy and “inside information” involved. This was not the case in the scenario described by Allen Kessler. Furthermore, there needs to be an advantage (as the PokerUpdate article rightly points out), and each of these four players is making a –EV decision and therefore increasing the equity of every player in the tournament.

These four players are only hurting themselves and are increasing yours and everyone else’s equity in the tournament, and as long as they are not talking privately or excluding other players from their talks they are not colluding.